Habiba Abu Muailiq, 8 years old
Refugee from the al-Maghazi camp
Habiba writes down her stories in her school notebook. Drawing and writing letters to her friends, she, like the whole city, awaits the end of the war so that she can return to her life, her school and her friends.
Habiba draws an imaginary character and names her Fayrouz. Fayrouz has her arms open, ready to embrace all that life has to offer. On her head is a crown; she smiles as she runs into her mother’s arms.
“I was running to my mother as I headed home from school,” Habiba says. “I got full marks on my exam, and my mother was very happy with me. It was the best day of my life. I drew, sang, sat and played. I miss my teachers, the head of my school[ME1] and my friends Siwar and Rahaf.”
Siwar Abu Ghazal is Habiba’s friend from school. She is also her neighbor[ME2] . “My friend Siwar… I do not know where she is! Their house was destroyed. I cried when I saw one of her toys and her school bag, and I felt despair[ME3] . She is my favorite friend, the most precious thing to me in this life. We used to study together (especially when our teacher would assign group work), play together, walk back home together — we would buy cheese-flavoured chips together. I have not seen her in so long. I miss going to school to see her. May God have mercy on her if she died in the war.”
Since October 7th, Habiba has heard no news of her friend Siwar. She lost all contact with her at the start of the aggression. All she knows is that Siwar’s house is now in ruins.
Habiba searches under the rubble for her friends: for the remains of their memories. She finds her friend Rahaf’s school uniform.
“I found her apron under the rubble,” she says, “so I washed it, hung it in my closet and kept it. We used to go and play with Rahaf and her toys every day, and I always took her side no matter what. We used to draw and play together; we did a lot of things. There is a drawing that I have, a drawing of us holding hands. Rahaf is in the second grade, and I am in the third. I am older than her, but I love her very much. She loves me but I love her more than she loves me, and I still love her. I found her toys. I found the miniature bride’s chair, the toy that her father bought her the day before the war started. I kept digging in the rubble until I found her apron and her schoolbook.”
Habiba feels remorseful. When asked why she feels this way, she says: “I regret what happened to her. Every time I do something, it goes away. I made a notebook at home, and in it I drew and wrote the story of Habiba’s life. I hope she doesn’t go away… but in the end, everything goes away.”
Habiba’s house, located in the Maghazi neighborhood, was damaged. She lost her beloved room, her toys, her clothes and her friends, all at the age of eight. This child is learning the meaning of loss at an age when children normally create their memories, discovering life in a different light.
“...but in the end, everything goes away.”
Siwar Bassiouni, 13 years old
Refugee from northern Gaza
On Oct. 7, 2023, Siwar woke up in the morning to go to school, and before she could close her school bag, she suddenly had to think about packing for an evacuation. The ‘bag’ no longer meant textbooks and pencil cases, but something very different.
“We were home for the first day. It was impossible to leave during the bombardment, which spared nobody. The second day we went out at eight in the morning. We reached the Zarqa area where we rested for a while, then Jabalia, and from there to the school.”
Siwar, who was supposed to go to her school with a bag carrying her sketchbook and coloring pencils, found herself in a school different to hers, sheltering with her family. Her bag contained a change of clothes and some food for the road.
“After six days, we made it to the school in Sheikh Radwan,” Siwar says.
Sheikh Radwan was no safer than Jabalia, even if one takes refuge in a school — which have come to be known as ‘shelter centers’. There’s scarce capacity to accommodate displaced families, and the structures themselves were not designed to accommodate refugees.
The bombing continued to pummel northern Gaza. In the meantime, the Israeli Occupation Forces sent messages to civilians telling them they should go to the south, forcing them to flee.
“In the afternoon, we went to the south in a large convoy,” Siwar says. “There were three cars ahead of us. They bombed the cars in front of us, so we changed direction. They bombed the street we turned on; next to us was a building, they bombed that too. My father was hit, and my mother told me he had died. I told her I wanted to die with him. I went out and ran towards him. He was still breathing, so I pulled him from the pavement and took him to the place we were sheltering in. After I pulled him out, they bombed again. The person next to him died, and we had nowhere to go — if I had been a minute late, he would have died too. I do not know how many sheets I placed over the wounded. I tried to cover the man who died with anything I could find.”
Siwar’s road to safety was strewn with the wounded and the dead due to the continuous bombing. Siwar, only 13 years old, had become a savior, helping her father and the wounded she found on her way. Instead of studying the functions of the respiratory system in her science class, life presented her with a different lesson: she has learned to be her family's breath while escorting them towards the south, where the Occupation claims is safe.
Siwar continued her path. “We walked on the Qazaz barefoot,” she says. “My mother was barefoot too. She walked with no shoes all the way to the school in the south. We left Salah al-Din and headed towards Deir al-Balah. The Occupation army was in front of us, the corpses around us were all dismembered. We could not look right or left. We just kept walking.”
Did Siwar know how far she and her family must travel to survive this genocidal war?
“We just kept walking.”
Alma Abed, 7 months old
Refugee from the Gaza Strip
Our little Alma,
My sweet little one,
As I write to you now, what separates us is a 20-minute drive. 20 minutes, that is, accounting for a normal day’s traffic before the war. Between us today, however, is also the length of an entire war, with no truce or ceasefire in sight.
Our beautiful little one.
We counted your soft little fingers and kissed them every time we saw you were well. Every small thing you did would amaze us: your ability to provoke your mother Heba and your constant, endless crying. What was most surprising to us was how quickly you would awake from your sleep, since we were the ones responsible for waking you up. We promise never to be impatient with you when your cheeky smile appears after you are done crying; it is the very hope we cling onto as the noose tightens around our neck.
Do you know, beautiful little one, how long we waited for you?
That day when your mother told us she was pregnant with you — it was like the most beautiful dream. We would hold secret meetings to search for a name for you, like in Fairuz’s song, Asameena (“Oh our names… how long have our parents yearned to find them”). Every day your parents would search for a name for you. We made a list of names and their meanings so that we could vote on the best name for you. As for you, you left us searching for the philosophy of names and all of the possible attributes we could assign to you through your name, but you chose to be Alma instead of all of the others we had thought of: Eylul, Elia, Elaine, Ella, Lama…
Back then your mother had promised you a beautiful life. You would be the princess we were all waiting for, after four boys. Our friend Ziad brought you a ribbon for your hair, and we imagined your soft hair covering your forehead. Our friend Fidaa bought you your first shoes, and we chose your clothes and prepared a list of songs for your arrival. We put the first toy on your bed to guard the dreams arriving with you. Then, we eagerly waited for you.
As we waited for you, we imagined how you would look. We were full of expectations. And when your father contacted me on August 16 to inform me that you have arrived, you came like a cold breeze carrying the marvel of new life to your parents. I remember hearing our friend A’id promise you he would be the best father, while your mother Hiba carried you in her arms as if her heart was in her hands. To us — here, I mean us friends: Ziad, Ahmed ‘Abu Assem’, Fidaa, and Ghassan — you are the first amongst the daughters of our city. We argued over who would get to hold you first, and our heartbeats would pick up when you cooed to us. [ME4] Mama Hiba brought you a life full of happiness and planned for your future as if she had never given birth before, and we accompanied her in her dreams. And now, our favorite little girl, you are growing up in a war, and I do not even know if you know the meaning of war! These first months of yours — this period we had all been waiting for — is now spent waiting for a ceasefire. You grow up caught between your mother's fear and your father's search for safety. This war has turned our lives upside down; one night was sufficient to steal all color from the rose-tinted world you were born into. Your mother now feels guilty that she gave birth to you in a world so unsafe. She asks herself if she was selfish to bring you into this world because of her love for you.
Our favorite little girl, Alma.
We will not make any more promises; I just hope you will be able to grow out of the rubble of our city and observe it from above like a pomegranate blossom. We will remain by your side, like the
boughs of our country, even if what separates us is the distance between a war and a ceasefire.
